Innovation:

Journalism took a beating in 2016. Donald Trump was elected president, thwarting pollsters and shaking off seemingly endless fact-checking. News organizations continue to lay off journalists … Read More

Anyone dismayed by the newsroom resources thrown at such seemingly puny rewards is "probably going to be in an ever-shrinking minority," Kafka writes, citing a tweet by Wall Street Journal digital macher Raju Narisetti:

At BuzzFeed, a website famous for its baiting headlines, writers can enter multiple titles and the publishing software will test them against one another to figure out which garners the most clicks. The Awl’s Choire Sicha recently cataloged some of patterns that have emerged from these sorts of experiments, including heads that start with “Watch this,” “Meet the,” “Here’s the,” and “Take a Break and…”

Still, BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti tells Tate working too hard on headlines is a "dangerous game” that can "manipulate readers into clicking stories they don’t actually want to read." (And yet BuzzFeed headlines snare me at least twice per day. The most recent BF story to which my lizard brain responded: 17 People Whose Lives Went Downhill Fast.)

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AUTHOR INFORMATION

Andrew Beaujon reported on the media for Poynter from 2012 to 2015. He was previously arts editor at TBD.com and managing editor of Washington City Paper. He's the author of the 2006 book "Body Piercing Saved My Life," about Christian rock and evangelical Christian culture.